Literature Review

From the literature available, there are two views concerning video games and violent behaviour. One side is that many people are being injured and sometimes even killed, as a result of the actions taken by some people who play video games. This is shown in the recent newspaper article of James Callaghan, who lost to his brother on a video game and then started attacking and threatening people in the street. He ended up killing a 65 year-old woman (Taylor, 2009). However the impact that violent video games can have on players, can depend on how much time they play, “greater that exposure to violent games will result in violent behavior” (Wagner, 2004).

On the other hand video games can have a good effect on players. “There's evidence that playing video games can have a positive effect on social life” (Rubens, 2007). This means that people can gain social skills from playing video games. Also the violence which does occur as a result of video games, is on average the same of violence linked to T.V and Movies (Wagner, 2004).

So there are two sides to video games, one being a violent side and a beneficial side to playing.